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9 September 2008

Why Mammography is NOT an Effective Breast Cancer Screen

The most devastating loss of life from breast cancer occurs between the ages of 30 to 50. Fortunately, you have more options available to you today to help detect breast cancer than in the past decades.

Unfortunately, education and awareness of these options and their effectiveness in detecting breast cancer at different stages in life are woefully deficient.Beyond Mammography

In the first part of the in-depth article linked below, Beyond Mammography, Dr. Len Saputo explores the latest findings on the effectiveness and shortcomings of various detection methods used by the mainstream medical community, including mammography, clinical breast exams, ultrasound, and to a lesser extent, magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) and PET scans.

The second part goes beyond mammography, exploring a highly advanced but much maligned detection tool for breast cancer -- breast thermography.

Breast thermography, which involves using a heat-sensing scanner to detect variations in the temperature of breast tissue, has been around since the 1960s. However, early infrared scanners were not very sensitive, and were insufficiently tested before being put into clinical practice, resulting in misdiagnosed cases.

In fact, the article references data from major peer review journals and research on more than 300,000 women who have been tested using the technology. Combined with the successes in detecting breast cancer with greater accuracy than other methods, the technology is slowly gaining ground among more progressive practitioners.

About the Author

Dr. Len Saputo, MD, is a graduate of Duke University Medical School, and is the Founder and Director of the Health Medicine Forum, which has hosted and moderated over 350 events. He's also the Co-founder and Medical Director of the Health Medicine Institute and Health Medicine Center, and runs a private practice in Internal Medicine and Health Medicine.